The permanent revolution in India and the tasks of the British working class

Like a giant awakening
after the sleep of centuries, India is stirring. The gaze of the whole world is
being transferred from Europe, a continent which has just been locked in the
chains of fascism, to India, a sub-continent which for two centuries has
endured the chains of democratic imperialism. With Japanese imperialism
advancing, with British imperialism doped and semi-paralysed, with the Indian
masses stirring to their very depths, mighty questions are serving notice on
humanity that they must be solved one way or another—and without delay.

For the British workers
in particular the question of freedom for India is no empty abstraction. It is
bound up closely with their own problems and particularly the problems raised
by the war.

The masses of the workers
have supported the ruling class in the war because they believe it was being
fought for the liberation of oppressed peoples throughout the world, and for
the “four freedoms”. The British workers in the past have jogged along
comfortably with the illusion that British domination of India was being
imposed for the benefit of the Indian people. But today they are beginning to
realise that the Indian people regard the British not as liberators but as
alien invaders and oppressors.

In Burma and Malaya[A] the masses demonstrated
by their indifference and apathy that they made no distinction between the
Japanese and the British. For them the struggle was one to decide which
of two contenders was to dominate them.

The whole colonial policy
of British imperialism has been summed up by Sir William Joynson-Hicks:

“We did not conquer India for the benefit of the Indians. I know that it
is said at missionary meetings that we have conquered India to raise the level
of the Indians. That is cant. We conquered India by the sword, and by the sword
we shall hold it…We hold it as the finest outlet for British goods.”

This is, as it always has
been, the policy of British imperialism in her colonial empire. India and
China, together with the rest of Asia constitute the richest prize in the
struggle for the redistribution of the world now being fought out on the world
battlefield. The only difference today is that the British sword has lost its
sharp edge, has become rusty and for this reason the bourgeoisie have been
forced to resort to other methods—empty promises, fake “concessions”, “national
independence”—all to be implemented, of course at some future date.

Prime Minister Winston
Churchill, has always maintained a consistent policy towards India. Even when
the Tories were willing to concede minor concessions in
the past to the Indian capitalists, Churchill has stood on the policy of
extreme opposition to any concessions to the Indian bourgeoisie and Congress.
The mere possibility of an independent India evinced from him the prophecy that
it would lead to “anarchy” and the “dull roar or scream of carnage and
confusion”. That he did not change his policy after he became Prime Minister is
testified by the fact that—by July 1941—12,129 Indians were imprisoned for
political reasons, including 28 ex-ministers, and 290 members of the provincial
legislatures. Today, the large majority of these, particularly those who stand
for complete and unconditional freedom of the Indian people, are still
languishing in British jails.

If the Indians gain their
independence, or even a measure of control, the palace of Empire will crash the
ground. In the eyes of the British ruling class the road of “anarchy”, that is
the road of socialist revolution, will have opened up. Of what use would be the
defeat of the Axis if it meant the certain destruction of not only British, but
world imperialism? For the repercussions of Indian freedom would not be limited
by the boundaries of India.

The British capitalist
class would far rather lose India to the Japanese than grant her independence,
reasoning that, with the aid of America and at the cost of countless British
and American soldiers, they would regain it, even if it took years and years of
bloody slaughter. The affinity between the imperialists of Japan and Britain
was eloquently demonstrated at the fall of Singapore, where the British
scrupulously kept to the letter of their agreement with Japan to “keep law and
order” by means of British bayonets until the Japanese, took over. This
precaution against the masses taking matters into their own hands predominates
in the policy of imperialism—even in its most critical hour.

The policy of
divide and rule

The farce of a “war for freedom” while hundreds of millions are in chains is fast becoming evident to the working class.
In their arguments, the bourgeoisie emphasise the “lack of tranquillity” within
India, the “disunity” of the Indian people. But the so-called problem of Indian
“disorder” is in reality a creation of British imperialism—deliberately
fostered, in order through their age-old policy of “divide-and-rule” to
maintain their hold on the Indian masses.

In this policy one of the
principal weapons in the armoury of the British are the communal organisations
which are the direct agents of, paid and subsidised by, British imperialism
itself. These are the “minorities” about whom the capitalist class and their
lackeys the Labour leaders are displaying so much concern in their negotiations.
The most important of these organisations is the Moslem League, which is in
reality supported by only a small proportion of Moslems. In the elections of
1937 the Moslem League—only secured 4.6 [percent] of the total Moslem
vote—321,772 out of the total of 7,319,445. Of the 80 million Moslems 20
percent are Shias, who have their own organisation, having disowned the Moslem
League and support Congress. The Momins[B], who number about 45
million, also repudiate the claim of the Moslem League to represent the
Moslems, and support the demand for a constituent assembly. In the North West
Frontier province which contains a large majority of Moslems—Congress was
returned with a big Majority.

The Hindu Mahasabha[C]—another tool of the
British imperialists—is the representative of the richest section of the
population and naturally, in its attempt to secure a disguise, it cloaks itself
in the reactionary covering of rigid Hindu orthodoxy. It acts as a foil and a
supplement to the reactionism of the Moslem League.

An example of the
deliberate policy of fostering division in Indian society, which is described
by the imperialists as the “Hindu-Moslem problem”, is provided by a strike in a
sugar mill in Bihar in 1939. The strike was caused by the management granting the
workers’ demand for a holiday to the Hindu employees only. The object
was, of course, to divide the workers on communal lines. But both Hindu and
Moslem workers replied to this provocation by united strike action. They
won the strike.

Cripps’ “horror” at the
suggestion of what he calls a “dictatorship” of India by the overwhelming
majority represented by Congress over the “unprotected minorities” can be seen
for what it is worth. It is a horror at the prospect of the British capitalists
losing control through the decayed and outlived Indian princes and privileged
minorities losing their grip over the oppressed masses. His protest on behalf
of “democracy” is in fact made on behalf of an oligarchy of 285,000 British
capitalists and their lackeys who dictate and decide the fate of 400 million
people.

With the armies of Nippon
hammering at the gates of India, and a rising ferment not only in India but
among the British working class, the British capitalist class has been
compelled to feign a policy of so-called “concessions”. As a token of their
“sincerity” they sent Sir Stafford Cripps, a left labour representative with a
reputation as a “friend of India” with promises of “freedom” but after the
war. Returning empty-handed, Cripps has confessed the failure of the plan
to gain the enthusiastic support of the Indians in the British war effort
against Japan. Before dealing with the fundamental reasons for the failure of
his mission, let us examine the epoch-making proposals with which this dove set
forth from its Downing Street Ark.

During the last war, too,
India was promised “dominion status”. But after the crisis was over, it was
discovered that political conditions were not sufficiently “tranquil” and the
Indian people were not sufficiently “ripe” for this to be granted immediately.
Nearly 25 years have elapsed since that promise. And once again, with World War
Two well in progress, and not going so well for the British rulers, the old
promises “after the war” are refurbished with a Crippsian veneer. It is self evident
that after the experience of Britain’s methods for the last three centuries,
promises of this nature leave the masses completely indifferent.

If the imperialists genuinely desired
to grant freedom to India, they would grant it now. If freedom can be given
after the war, why not now? The answer to this is provided in the manifesto of
our Indian comrades which is republished in this pamphlet[D].
Real independence for India means above all the agrarian
revolution—land for the peasants; the cleansing of India of the relics of
barbaric feudalism represented by the princes and landlords.

The
farce of representative government

It is proposed that the
constitution-making body to be elected be a college of all the provincial
legislatures, where not one in ten of the Indian people have the vote, and
those who do have it belong to the better-off strata. Such an assembly, to say
the least, would be completely unrepresentative. Besides this, the princes of
the Indian states are to nominate a third or the members of the Electoral
College. These princes who rule over 25 percent of the population, only
continue their corrupt and autocratic domination by the direct aid of British
bayonets. The 90 million people under the domination of the princes are to have
no voice, but are to be “represented” by these despots. Time and again,
uprisings in one or another of the Indian states have been brutally suppressed
through the intervention of troops from British India. Without the support of
British imperialism the princes—these obsolete and senile survivals of a
by-gone age of Asiatic feudalism, couldnot continue to crush the
peasants for longer than 24 hours.

The representatives in the provincial
legislatures are not selected on the basis of an ordinary electoral role, but
are artificially divided into communities of Moslems, Sikhs, Brahmins, etc.
They are thus even more unrepresentative because the number of representatives
between the various denominations (especially Hindus and Moslems) is not
according to proportion of population. By the division of the communities into
classes—workers, peasants, landlords, merchants, etc., the representation of
the mass of the Indian people becomes completely unreal.

British imperialism, by manipulating
kept agents is enabled to promote disruption and disunity in India.

It was the deliberate intention of
the British government so to frame the promised constitution as to provoke
sanguinary conflicts and bloody civil war. The British Raj would then step in
and proclaim that only Britain could keep peace between the warring factions
and “preserve order”. Inherent in the whole plan is the fundamental proposition
that the real power was to rest in the hands of the Viceroy through the
continuation of his power of veto. The farce of “representative government” has
been demonstrated in the past where provincial governments passed measures with
which the Viceroy disagreed…so he simply vetoed them! Furthermore, it must be
pointed out, that the provincial governments ceased to function when the war
broke out, and the control reverted openly to the Viceroy and his council.

British
to control armed forces

When the mass of verbiage concealing the real aims and intentions of
the British rulers is thrust aside, it is clearly observed that all power, the
decisive power, control of arms and the armed forces, shall remain in
the hands of British imperialism.

If
the 400 million Indian workers and peasants were granted their freedom and
supplied with arms and equipment, it would not be necessary to send a single
British soldier to the Far East to stem a threat of Japanese invasion. India
could provide an inexhaustible army of 50 million. But the British dare not arm
their slaves, any more than they dared in Burma, Malaya and Java. Far from
this, legislation has been passed during the course of the war forbidding in
India “unlawful drilling with or without arms and the wearing of unofficial
uniforms which bear a colourable resemblance to military or other official
uniforms by non-official volunteer organisations.”

Control was the issue around which
the discussions took place. Under pressure, the British agreed to the
appointment of an Indian Defence Minister, but he was to be without power to
decide policy or strategy; all decisions were to remain finally in the hands of
the Commander in Chief—an appointee of Britain, such as General Wavell.

“During
the critical period which now faces India, and until the new constitution can
be framed His Majesty’s government must inevitably bear the responsibility for
and retain control and direction of India as part of their world war effort,
but the task of organising to the full the military, moral and material
resources of India must be the responsibility of the government of India…”

In other words, control was to
be retained by Britain, while responsibility was to fall on the
shoulders of Congress.

In the final analysis all power
rests with those in control of the armed forces. Lenin and before him Marx and
Engels pointed out that this is the decisive touchstone of the question of
power. The British have not the slightest intention of relaxing their iron grip
by relinquishing control of the armed forces. When has it ever happened in
history that the capitalists voluntarily and without bitter and violent struggle,
give up their possessions?

It was on this decisive issue that
the talks broke down. Congress, while willing to capitulate to British
imperialism, desired at least a semblance of control in order to delude their
followers that the British had given them some real concessions, otherwise they
could expect to lose all support among the Indian masses. Congress position can
be summed up in the words of Mr. Rajagopalachari:

“At
the present moment defence is practically the whole government, and if, as
repeatedly declared by Sir Stafford Cripps so far, defence is to be strictly
reserved, the leaders of the people feel that they cannot hope to overcome the
popular attitude of apathy, if not hostility towards the British.

“The
leaders of the people should be enabled to honestly shout to the masses that
the war is a peoples’ war, and the government a peoples’ government.”

In these lines is contained the
reason why Congress was reluctantly compelled to reject the plan.

Cripps may once again be sent on his
errand; this time with some face-saving formula which will enable the Indian
capitalists to show some pretence that power has really been turned over to the
Indian people…while in reality it will remain in the hand of Whitehall.

Despite the breakdown of
negotiations, Nehru, in the name of Congress, has appealed for the organising
of the utmost resistance to the Japanese advance. The reason for this is their
belief that a greater share of the exploitation of the Indian people will be
their lot under British domination than under Japanese. They understand that
only with the aid of one great imperialistic power or another can the weak
Indian bourgeoisie maintain its parasitic role in India. They have the example
of China in the last few years as a warning. The Chinese capitalists, through
Chiang Kai-Shek, tried ceaselessly to arrive at a compromise with the Japanese.
During the seizure of Manchuria and North China, they offered no resistance to
Japanese encroachments. Only when it became clear that the Japanese, as at
Shanghai, were destroying Chinese factories which competed with Japan and
sending the machinery to Japan as scrap for armaments production, were
they compelled to offer resistance.

The Japanese industrialists compete
very keenly with those of India. It is fear for their investments, plus the
links with British and American capital, which compels Congress to choose the
British rather than the Japanese exploiters.

Background
of the present crisis—the economic conditions of Indian masses

According to the estimate made by Sir
James Grigg, the present War Minister, the average income in all India is £4 4s
0d a year. This includes the fabulously wealthy Maharajahs and the
millionaire mill-owners, as well as the humble worker and peasant. Yet even so,
it amounts to about 1s 7d a week, or a little less than 3d a day[E].
This is the fruit of 200 years of British “protection” of India.
The standard of living of the masses is even lower than at the time of the East
India Company.

To give some idea of what it means to
the Indian masses to exist on such an income, can be gauged from the following
extract from a report by two Indian bourgeois economists:

“The
average Indian income is just enough either to feed two men in every three of
the population, or give them all two in place of every three meals they need,
on condition that they all consent to go naked, live out of doors all the year
round, have no amusement or recreation, and want nothing else but food, and
that the lowest, the coarsest, the least nutritious.”

The housing situation is no better
than nutrition. The Bombay labour office inquiry into working class budgets
found that 97 percent of the working class families in Bombay were living in
one room tenements, often containing two and even up to eight families in one
room. One third of the population were living more than 5 persons in a room;
256,379 from 6 to 9 in a room; 8,133 from 10 to 19 persons in a room, 15,490
were living 20 persons and over in one room.

Under the beneficent auspices of
British imperialism, the average length of life in India has gone down from
24.75 years in 1921 to 23 years in 1931. Even V. Anstey, a writer sympathetic
to imperialism, has reckoned that 3 deaths out of 4 in India are due to diseases
of poverty. The Bengal Officer of Health stated in his report for 1927-28 that
“the present peasantry of Bengal are in a very large proportion taking to a
dietary on which even rats could not live for more than five weeks.”
Illiteracy, which amounted to 94 percent of the population in 1911, had been
reduced by 1931 to 92 percent! Truly a great achievement and a testimony to the
civilising influence of British imperialism.

These few figures serve to give some
indication of the “horror without end” to which the rule of British imperialism
has condemned a quarter of the world’s population.

The
agrarian problem

The basis of existence of the
peasants has been taken away from them. Driven off the land, they have been
forced into the status of village proletarians. Between the years 1921 and 1931
the number of agricultural labourers increased from 21.7 million to 33.5
million. These are the most, miserable and poverty-stricken strata in the
villages. But to them must be added at least 50 million more who earn only a
bare pittance from their small plots of land, and have to supplement this by
working for a big landlord. The amount of land held by these millions, and the
standard of life it can afford them, can be seen from a report of the situation
in the presidency of Bombay. In that area 48 percent of all the agricultural
holdings consisted of less than 5 acres of cultivated land, and this 48 percent
of small peasant holders possessed together only 2.4 percent of the total area.
It is estimated by some experts that these two classes of landless and
semi-landless peasants form more than half the population of the villages.

The vast majority of the peasants
live in debt to the moneylender. The total income of the peasantry (this
includes the rich peasants) has been estimated at 42 rupees (£2 13s 0d) a year.
From this there is taken in rent and taxes 20 rupees. When to this are added
the exactions of the moneylender (whose rate, remember is 75 percent) the total
paid out is more than two-thirds of the income. This was confirmed by an
investigation conducted by a Congress representative: “Of the net total income
more than two thirds goes out of the village by way of land revenue and excise
taxes, interest charges and rents to non-resident owners.” After all the
vultures have had their pick, the peasant is left with an average of 13
rupees a year, that is, 19s.

The peasants are permanently in
debt. The obliging moneylenders charge a mere Anna per rupee per
month[F]—that is 75 percent!
The total debt of the peasants in 1921
was £400 million. By 1937 it had increased to £1,350 million. This means that
on an average every peasant is in debt to the extent of at least 5 years
income! With the combined burden of the British imperialists, the moneylenders
and the landlords, the slavery of the masses is growing steadily worse.

These figures constitute, as Trotsky
remarked of similar statistics in tsarist Russia, “the finished programme of a
peasant war.” The difference is that in India the problem is even more
intense than it was in Russia; the poverty, the landlessness of the peasants is
even worse, the exactions and extortions of landlords and imperialists, even
greater. It may be added that the links between the landlords and the Indian
bourgeoisie are even more firmly united than they were in Russia. It is this
that dictates the inevitable betrayal of the movement against imperialism by
the organisations of the bourgeoisie, of which Congress Party has the largest
support.

The role of Congress

The Congress Party is the
representative of the Indian capitalist class. But it has the support of the
overwhelming majority of the Indian people—Hindus and Moslems, workers and
peasants—in their aspirations for national liberation from British imperialism.
But the capitalists in Congress are not really desirous of waging a struggle to
the end against the British Raj.

The big capitalists in India who
control the Congress are linked by many ties with the imperialists on the one
side and the landlords, moneylenders and princes on the other. The bankers and
big capitalists spring from the landlord class and have simultaneous interests
in both land and industry.

In the Indian states the capitalists
have investments which link them to the princes, and British imperialism has
the controlling interest in the banks. Large sections of industry in India are
jointly controlled by British and Indian capital. The financial structure of
India is directly linked with the City of London. Thus, the landlords,
capitalists, princes and imperialists, although they may quarrel as to the
division of the spoils squeezed out of the Indian workers and peasants, are
united as one against any encroachment on this surplus by the Indian people.

Striking proof of this was provided
in the mass struggles against British imperialism in 1922 and 1929-31. The
moment the movement threatened to rouse the peasantry into action, the
bourgeoisie, through Congress made haste to capitulate to British imperialism.
In his book India today(1),
written during the recent phase of
the Comintern when Britain was the “most reactionary” imperialism, Palme Dutt
writes in describing the betrayal of the mass movement by Congress:

“On
a word of command from the Congress centre this process (refusal to pay taxes:
not 5 percent were collected in Guntur) could undoubtedly be unleashed
throughout the country, and would have turned into a universal refusal of
land revenue and rent. But this process would have meant the sweeping away,
not only of imperialism, but also of landlordism…The Bardoli resolution
instructed…the local Congress committees to advise the cultivators to pay land
revenue and other taxes due to the government…The working committee advises
Congress workers and organisations to inform the ryots (peasants) that withholding
of rent payment to the zamindars (landlords) is contrary to the
Congress’ resolutions and injurious to the best interests of the country…The
working committee assures the zamindars that the Congress movement is in
no way intended to attack their legal rights, and that even where
the ryots have grievances the committee desires that redress be sought
by mutual consultation and arbitration.”

Here can be seen the essence of
the betrayal of the national struggle by the Congress in 1930-34: fear of
arousing the pent-up feelings of the peasants, which would express itself in a
struggle not only against the British government (the visible symbol of which
is the tax collector) but also against the native exploiters. In the struggle
for emancipation the peasant would be as little concerned with the fine
distinction between landlords, tax-collectors and moneylenders as he is with
the distinction between the other vermin—the lice, fleas and bugs—which prey
upon him.

The striving of the peasants to rid
themselves of their terrible burdens has resulted in organs of struggle being
developed in the countryside to lead this movement. These organs have been the
peasant committees which have arisen independent of the bourgeois national
Congress. The first all-India peasant organisation was formed in 1936—the all-India
Kisan Sabha. By 1939 the membership was already 800,000. Included in their
programme was the demand for complete national independence and a democratic
state of the Indian people, leading ultimately to a “peasants’ and workers’
rule”.

The leadership, for lack of a different
perspective, have subordinated these independent organisations to the Congress,
although increasingly coming into collision with it. If the movement is not to
suffer the fate of the peasant movement in China, it must find leadership in
the industrial proletariat. These peasant committees which have already reached
a stage far in advance of the organisation of the Russian peasants before the
Revolution of 1917, are, no doubt an expression of the pressure of the rural proletariat.
Tomorrow, linked with the committees of action of the workers in the towns;
that is, soviets, they must inevitably play a great role in the mobilising of
the Indian people in the struggle for freedom. Subordination to the bourgeoisie
would mean inevitable disaster. Only by organising the peasants round their own
committees and in their own interests, in co-operation with the leadership of
the workers in the cities, will the agrarian revolution be successfully carried
out. Subhas Bose, the radical petty bourgeois on the left wing of Congress,
after despairing of India receiving freedom from the British, has now
landed up in the camp of the ravishers of the Chinese people—the camp of military-feudal Japanese imperialism. Wang
Ching-Wei, who could be described as the Chinese Bose, also betrayed the masses
and ended up as the head of
the puppet government of Japan. This is an instructive lesson of the blind alley in which not only the bourgeoisie, but the radical petty bourgeoisie find
themselves. These elements must
inevitably end up in one or another camp of imperialism
if they fail to base themselves on the progressive
programme of a workers’ and peasants’
government.

The
role of the Indian proletariat

Owing to the stringent
censorship, news of the Indian working class struggles is indeed scant.
From individual reports of visiting seamen and Indian workers it
is clear that there has been no suspension of the
class struggle—rather an
intensification.

The rapid growth of the
proletariat can be seen from the fact
that between the years 1921 and 1931 the number of industrial workers employed in establishments of more than 10 workers rose from 2.6 million to 3.5 million. In the intervening
decade, and especially in the last two and a half years of the war with the
large increase in heavy war industry, this number has rocketed by leaps
and bounds. Even taking the
term in the narrowest sense the industrial
proletariat numbers today far more than the 5
million estimate of 1931. To this
core of true industrial workers
must be added about 20 million handicraft workers who work in places employing
less than 10 people. These are
wage workers and constitute a reserve for the industrial working class. They will
follow the lead of the decisive section of the conscious
proletariat. In addition to this there is an agricultural
proletariat which is now estimated to number about half the
peasantry—that is approximately 130 million.

In the ten biggest cities the
population has increased during the last decade from
5,309,000 to 8,183,000. Calcutta has increased its population by 85 percent and Bombay by 28
percent. About a dozen other cities not including the above have increased their population by from 50
to 100 percent. This tremendous rise
in the numbers of the proletariat increases its specific weight in Indian society enormously.

From the scanty
government statistics, biased and incomplete
as they are, it is nevertheless possible to gain some idea of the dynamic of
events in India. In the last few
years, despite the increase in industry, the only industries which showed a
decrease were rice, cotton-ginning and cotton-baling.
These are Indian consumption industries and therefore their decline is a measure of the worsening
conditions of the masses. A government report, confirming this decline, has
estimated an average indebtedness of working class families of four months wages.
This in 1939, when the effects of the war were just
beginning to be felt.

The workers have been replying to the attacks on
their living standards. This awakening is to be observed from the
government reports of the different provinces, where bitter
strikes against both British and Indian owned factories are recorded. In
March 1940, 160,000 textile workers came out on strike for “dearness”
allowance; that is for a rise of wages to meet the increased cost of living.
Three leaders were arrested. The council of action of the Bombay TUC called for
a general strike in sympathy. The majority of cases tell the same
story—strike after strike, leading to outbreaks of violence and pitched battles
between police and strikers, and arrests. Most of the strikes, according to
the reports began as strikes against personal assault, ill-treatment and
victimisation
of workers; strikes for the dismissal of foremen and managers, and strikes in sympathy with
other workers. Once begun, however, wage demands were invariably put forward,
revealing the continual underlying economic discontent.

The high level of
consciousness and militancy of the Indian working class was seen in the sugar-mill strike in
Bihar in 1939. Beginning as a
solidarity strike, it developed to a point where demands were put forward in
the course of the struggle for increased supply of
fuel, bedding and better housing. But
significant are the words of the official government report of the strike: “All
the demands were conceded except
the formation of a committee to manage
the concern and the immediate
increase of pay.” Here we see the expression of the elemental strivings of the workers to take control of industry—and through
this the fate of the nation—into their own hands.

The militant movement among the workers must
inevitably take an anti-capitalist as well as
anti-imperialist form. The workers in
the towns interpret the struggle against the hated domination into collision with the Indian bourgeoisie. The elemental striving of the working
class to assume leadership, will throw
up a new layer of fighting leaders,
winch will be hammered out and tempered in the fire of struggle. Before
the outbreak of the war, the Bihar government
recognised the ominous portents of the rise of the workers’ movement.
Their report states:

“The year 1938 continues to
be characterised by general restlessness. As reported last year this was due to the expectations
raised by the emergence of political leaders amongst the labouring classes…there were 16 strikes including one lockout in
1938 as compared with 11 in 1937.”

The elemental striving of the working class to
assume leadership, and its preponderance in
the struggle, was shown in the
movement of 1929-31, which was ushered in by a strike movement of
colossal dimensions. At the Calcutta Congress held just prior to this upsurge,
50,000 workers demonstrated with the slogan “An independent socialist
republic of India!” This tendency towards independent working class
leadership of the national struggle manifested itself again at the outbreak of
the war in a political anti-war strike of 80,000 workers of
Bombay.

Under the exceptional
conditions, with the awakening of the workers and peasants throughout India,
this layer will find itself at the head of the whole nation. All they require
is a policy which will make conscious in them the role which instinctively they
are striving to play. The continuous reverses and defeats of the British will
imbue the oppressed masses of India with a new confidence to face their
imperialist masters. As an Indian student expressed it after the fall of
Singapore: “Good God! For years we have imagined these fellows were so strong,
but look at them! We have been afraid of a phantom!”

The failure of the bourgeoisie to
conduct a struggle for the emancipation of the masses, due to the same reasons
as in Russia, gives the young proletariat the possibility of
victoriously accomplishing the tasks which in the past had been carried out by
the national bourgeoisie, and of laying the path for the new development of
society. In India the proletariat is the only class which can solve the
problems of the masses and lead the nation consistently in the struggle against
imperialism, feudalism and landlordism. The small, but rapidly growing class,
can lead the scattered peasantry, and by taking power into its own hands,
proceed first of all to carry out the tasks of the bourgeois democratic
revolution. From there, by the logic of its position it will advance inevitably
to the socialist tasks. This in a nutshell is the sole solution to the Indian
revolution which is now begun—this is the permanent revolution.

The Indian proletariat is not
isolated. Like the proletariat of Russia it springs directly from the
peasantry. The vast majority have been peasants themselves, or have relatives
in the villages. The workers have direct connection with the peasants, and
above all, with the scores of millions of rural proletarians and rural
semi-proletarians.

Coupled with the rise in militancy
has emerged the awakening of tens of millions by the war crisis. The masses do
not want the victory of Japan; they have seen the terrible exploitation and
suppression of the Chinese and Korean masses at the hands of Japanese
imperialism. Their critical attitude not only towards British imperialism, but
towards the traitors of the bourgeois national Congress, drives them
irresistibly towards attempting to organise on an independent class basis. The
bitter struggles the workers have waged against their employers, and the
struggles of the peasants against the landlords, drives into their
consciousness the need for independent class organisation.

The
permanent revolution as applied to India

The theory of the permanent
revolution is based on the incapacity of the bourgeoisie in backward countries
to solve the tasks of the bourgeois revolution; the national liberation from
the shackles of imperialism, the ending of the feudal division of the country
into separate provinces and its unification into a single whole, the dividing
the land among the peasantry, and the adoption of the democratic constituent
assembly. In the past these tasks were solved, as in France and Britain, by the
young and vigorous bourgeoisie. But now under the conditions of world
imperialism, the colonial bourgeoisie is no longer capable of carrying through
these progressive tasks. It is this that makes it imperative, if the struggle
for liberation is to be successful, that the proletariat should assume the
leadership of the entire nation, weak in numbers though it is. It is only thus
that the tasks of India can be solved. The rebellious peasantry must find an
ally and a leader in the city workers.

But in order to accomplish this it
will be necessary for the proletariat to take power. Once having done this,
they will advance not merely to the solution of the bourgeois tasks, but to the
socialist tasks. In this they will need the support of the international
working class that is by the extension of the proletarian revolution to other
parts of the world.

In analysing the Tragedy of the
Chinese Revolution, comrade Trotsky wrote:

“Not a single one of the tasks of the ‘bourgeois’
revolution can be solved in these backward countries under the leadership of
the ‘national’ bourgeoisie, because the latter emerges at once with foreign
support as a class alien or hostile to the people. Every stage in its
development binds it only the more closely to the foreign finance capital of
which it is essentially the agency. The petty bourgeoisie of the colonies, that
of handicrafts and trade, is the first to fall victim in the unequal struggle
with foreign capital, declining into economic insignificance, becoming
declassed and pauperised. It cannot even conceive of playing an independent
political role. The peasantry, the largest numerically and the most atomised, backward
and oppressed class, is capable of local uprisings and partisan warfare, but
requires the leadership of a more advanced and centralised class in order for
this struggle to be elevated to an all-national level. The task of such
leadership falls in the nature of things upon the colonial proletariat, which,
from its very first steps, stands opposed not only to the foreign but also to
its own national bourgeoisie.” (L. Trotsky, Introduction to Tragedy
of the Chinese Revolution, by H. Isaacs)
[source]

In China the revolution of
1925-27 could quite easily have achieved success. If the colonial bourgeoisie
could play a progressive role—this would surely be the case more so in
China than in India, where the native capitalists were at least
nominally independent of imperialism. But as in India, the Chinese bourgeoisie
placed itself at the head of the mass movement in order to extract concessions
from imperialism. But as soon as the peasants began to move in the
direction of the agrarian revolution and the workers strove to take control of
industry, the alarmed bourgeois, led by Chiang Kai-Shek, betrayed the
Chinese revolution and arrived at a compromise with imperialism. They were
compelled to capitulate to imperialism because they could not solve a single
major problem due to their links with the landowners and militarists.

It was in justification of their
unconditional support for the Chinese bourgeoisie (Stalin’s “bloc of four
classes”) that Trotsky’s “permanent revolution” was attacked by the Comintern.
This support led to the defeat of the Chinese revolution, and betrayed
the Chinese workers and peasants to the mercies of the counter-revolution. By
the end of 1930 the Red Aid estimated that no less than 140,000 Chinese workers
and peasants had been killed or died in the prisons of the Kuomintang under the
leadership of Chiang Kai-Shek.

In Russia, the bourgeoisie was
incapable of conducting a struggle against tsarist feudalism, the Church and
the landlords due to the self-same ties as in China and India. This gave the
young proletariat the possibilityof victoriously accomplishing the
tasks which in the past had been carried out by the bourgeoisie and of laying
the path for a new and higher development of Russian society. In his Thesis
on the colonial question adopted by the second congress
[of the Communist International], Lenin wrote:

“There
are to be found in the dependent countries two distinct movements which
every day grow farther and farther apart from each other. One is the bourgeois
democratic nationalist movement, with a programme of political independence
under the bourgeois order, and the other is the mass action of the poor and
ignorant peasants and workers for their liberation from all sorts of
exploitation. The former endeavour to control the latter, and often succeed to
a certain extent, but the Communist International and the parties affected must
struggle against such control and help to develop class consciousness in the
working masses of the colonies. For the overthrow of foreign capitalists, which
is the first step towards revolution in the colonies, the co-operation of the
bourgeois nationalist revolutionary elements is useful. But the foremost and
necessary task is the formation of communist parties which will organise the
peasants and workers and lead them to the revolution and to the
establishment of soviet republics. Thus the masses in the backward countries
may reach communism, not through capitalist development, but led by the
class-conscious proletariat of the advanced capitalist countries.

“The revolution in the colonies is not going to
be a communist revolution in its first stages. But if from the outset the
leadership is in the hands of a communist vanguard, the revolutionary masses
will not be led astray, but will go ahead through the successive periods of
development of revolutionary experience…In the first stages the revolution in the
colonies must be carried on with a programme which will include many petty
bourgeois reform clauses, such as division of land, etc. But from this it does
not follow at all that the leadership of the revolution will have to be
surrendered to the bourgeois democrats. On the contrary, the proletarian
parties must carry on vigorous and systematic propaganda for the Soviet idea
and organise the peasants’ and workers’ soviets as soon as possible…”

Armed with this policy the Russian
proletariat were led to victory; with this policy alone will the Indian
proletariat be led to victory. But what a far cry this is from the present
policies of Stalin and the Comintern! Today Stalinism is crowning its
ignominious record with an even more base betrayal. From the struggle against
imperialism for which they stood in words, they have now advanced into the
position of agents of British imperialism since the attacks on Soviet Russia.

At a time when the mass struggle was
rising, they subordinated the struggle to the demands of the bourgeois national
Congress, and remained inside that organisation as a loyal opposition.
Instead of fighting for the leadership of the working class through the
building of the Communist Party, independent of the capitalists, they organised
so-called worker-peasant parties which appeared out of the ground as
mysteriously as they vanished. Having burned their fingers thus, they advanced
to the ultra-left policy in the period of mass upsurge 1929-32; they denounced
Congress as “fascist” and succeeded by these methods of isolating themselves
from the mass movement, and at the same time lowered the class consciousness of
the Indian masses.

At the present period they are
supporting, as far as they dare without completely discrediting themselves, the
position taken by Congress. They differ from Congress principally in being more
servile towards the imperialists, whom they now claim are fighting a
progressive anti-fascist war. Like their fellow-compatriots in Malaya,
Singapore, Java and Burma, they demand “unity” with British imperialism against
Japan. But such a policy can only have the same results as in these countries.

The call for a “national government”
in India is the call for an agreement on the part of the Indian capitalists and
landlords with the British imperialists, which would be directed against the
masses.

Stalinism merely demoralises and
confuses the vanguard of the working class. Their policy of collaboration with
the oppressor cannot gain the support of the downtrodden masses in the colonial
countries against any invader. This road leads only to the continued rule of
one imperialism or another, and to the inevitable defeat of the masses in their
struggle for both national and social emancipation. Far from weakening the
power of the Axis, insofar as they have any effect at all, these policies,
serve only to assist Japan’s advance by spreading disillusionment and
demoralisation among the masses. Far from aiding the Soviet Union, they are
helping its enemies.

For a constituent assembly

The Indian Trotskyists, the vanguard
of the Indian working class, basing themselves on the teachings of Lenin, are
putting forward the demand for the immediate convening of a constituent
assembly. This is the elementary democratic demand—the right of the people to
elect their own representatives by means of universal suffrage. The struggle
for a constituent assembly, involves the struggle for elementary human rights
which are denied to the Indian people by Churchill and his government: the
right of free speech and organisation; the release of thousands of political
prisoners languishing in Indian jails; an election throughout the country to be
held on the basis of universal adult suffrage from the age of 18 without
property or other restrictions; land to the peasants; living wages for the
proletariat including the 8 hour day; the prohibition of child labour;
expropriation of war profits.

This slogan will immediately receive
support from the workers’ organisations: from the unions, from the councils set
up in the factories, from the strike committees and the area committees. It
will evoke an immediate response from the peasants’ councils which have been
set up as organs of struggle against the landlords and tax collectors, and
which still continue to function despite all repressions. In the course of the
struggle for the constituent assembly the masses will become convinced by their
own experience that the solution to their problems lies in their own hands.
Only by the dictatorship of the proletariat supported by the peasantry—that is,
only by basing themselves on Lenin’s formula, can the liberation of India be
achieved.

The complete incapacity of Congress
and the Indian capitalists to wage a struggle for freedom is demonstrated by
their failure to conduct a consistent agitation for the convening of a
constituent assembly. We say “consistent” because from time to time the issue
has been raised by sections of Congress. But at a time when British imperialism
is at her weakest and posing as a great “democrat”, they dare not put forward
the demand for the constituent assembly because of their fear of the Indian
masses. This alone, reveals more than anything else, the role of the Indian
bourgeoisie as agents of British imperialism. Even if they were to put forward
the slogan, they could not carry the matter beyond words and into action.

In Russia in 1917 the capitalists
were forced to “accept” the slogan in words, but vigorously sabotaged and
resisted all attempts to convene the constituent assembly. In India the
capitalists have not even gone to that length. Instead of the present position
being utilised by Congress to wage a struggle against British domination, it
resorts to a desperate attempt to arrive at agreement with Whitehall. The main
struggle in Congress has been for the different sections to out-do each other
in grovelling at the feet of British imperialism.

In the first place the struggle in
India must be waged against all imperialisms—and above all the treachery
of the Congress as the tool of imperialism, must be ruthlessly exposed. Had
Congress so desired, the difficulties of the British imperialists position,
coupled with the reawakening of political life of the Indian masses, could have
served to lay the way for the complete victory over the forces of British
domination. The taking of power by Congress, and the mobilisation of the
workers and peasants—arms in hand—would render the threat of Japanese invasion
impossible. No army in the world could conquer, and hold down the peoples of an
entire sub-continent who were thus genuinely fighting for their freedom. The
arming of the workers and peasants for the struggle against all imperialisms;
the giving of the land to the peasants; the destruction of the power of the
princes; the taking over of industry by the workers—these would sound the
death-knell of all imperialisms and would immediately topple the Japanese
militarists from their throne, for the Japanese soldiers, mostly peasants
themselves, would respond to the slogan of “land to the peasants”. The Indian
revolution would spread to Japan and light upthe whole of Asia.

Policies
of British working glass organisations

In this situation it is necessary to
analyse carefully the policies of the organisations which claim to represent
the interests of the British working class. For, as Lenin once remarked, the
acid test for those who claim to be socialists in the metropolitan countries,
especially Britain, was their attitude to the colonial question; the road to
the liberation of the workers of Britain lay through India; the test was not
merely that of opposing in words the iniquities of imperialism but
systematically clarifying the workers of Britain and assisting the workers and
peasants of India to fight against the same oppressor.

The
Labour Party

The Labour and trade union
bureaucracy have shown clearly that they stand as watch-dogs in the interests
of British imperialism. They are even more zealous in defending the vultures’
grip on India than the imperialists themselves. The loss of India would mean
for them the end of the privileges enjoyed by the Labour and trade union upper
crust and the better paid stratum of the workers, which have fallen to them as
the crumbs from the table of the bourgeoisie, only because of the
super-exploitation of the Indian and colonial masses. The only difference
between the Labour leaders and Churchill on this question, is that the former
are more hypocritical and dishonest.

In a recent speech Bevin came out in
defence of India’s “underdogs”. Shedding crocodile tears, he vowed that the
labour movement would not be prepared to leave the 50 million untouchables to
the mercies of the majority of the Indian people—that is to the mercies of the
Indian workers and peasants! Apparently he wishes to convey that the British
have subjugated India for the past 200 years merely to safeguard the interests
of the unprotected “minorities”. During the entire period of their domination,
the British imperialists have succeeded in perpetuating the most abominable
slavery—especially of the untouchable caste—on the pretext that they could not
interfere with Indian customs!

Bevin and his confreres had the
opportunity to demonstrate the sincerity of their concern for the welfare of
the Indian “underdog” in the Labour governments of 1924 and 1929-31. But they
were too busy jailing, suppressing and shooting those Indians who demanded that
they should put into effect Labour’s promises of freedom to India. No less than
60,000 Indians were imprisoned by the second Labour government.

The Labour “lefts” gathered under the
banner of the Tribune play an even more dangerous role. They “reason”
with Churchill and Bevin, pointing to the benefits which would accrue to
Britain by granting of concessions to India. It is a classic expression of the
role of the “left” wing of the Labour Party, that the British bourgeoisie
should have entrusted their dirty work in India to one of them—Sir Stafford
Cripps. Beneath the left sounding phrases which cover the policy of the Tribune
like a coating of inferior varnish, can be seen the same old stains of official
Labour.

“What is now at issue is a different question. It
is the participation of India in the struggle to defeat the common enemy. If
the Japs win, self-government for India will cease to have even academic interest.
Therefore we repeat: what now requires to be done is to agree on the amount of
immediate self-government which will enable that first object to be achieved.
If the Indian leaders press their claims beyond that necessity they will betray
their own cause. If the British terms fall short of that they will miss the
target.”

“Give the Indian masses just enough
to create the illusion that they have something to fight the Japanese
for”—that is the policy of the Labour lefts. “Loosen the chains of the Indian
people in order that the master can gain their services in hour of need.”

The
Communist Party

The Communist Party instead of
explaining why the vultures of British imperialist will not
release their chains and exposing the fraudulency of their claim to be
fighting a war against fascism, the Communist Party covers up the real
imperialist aims of the war. In the party declaration issued after the failure
of the Cripps’ mission[G] they state:

“The
negotiations broke down because the British government will not agree to the
formation of an Indian national government, which alone can rally the peoples
of India and organise all their resources in the struggle against
fascism.”

In actuality the talks broke
down because the British are not prepared to give even the Indian
bourgeoisie—never mind the Indian people—the pretence of national independence.
The statement goes on:

“The British government has not yet learnt the
lessons of its defeats in Hong Kong, Malaya, Singapore and Burma where we
failed to win the peoples for the fight alongside Britain against Japan.”

They have not yet learnt the lessons!
As if the ruling class could operate any other policy. To get the enthusiastic
support of the masses in the fight against Japan the first prerequisite is that
they have something to fight for. To plead piteously to the ruling class for a
change of heart is to ask the vampires of imperialism to kindly leave off
sucking the blood of the colonial masses on humanitarian grounds.

Contrast this with Dutt’s statements
at the beginning of the war, when the role of Britain was correctly
characterised as imperialist.

“Nothing could be more dangerous than for the new
tone of official utterance to give rise to any illusions, as to the iron
realities of imperialist policy and power, or as to the intention of
imperialism by every means at its command to maintain that power.”

It is not possible to reach any
conclusion other than that Palme Dutt and the leaders of the Communist Party,
fully schooled in the Marxist characterisation of imperialism and its colonial
policy and aims, are deliberately deceiving the British workers.

In World News and Views, April
25th 1942, Ben Bradley writes:

“The
Congress proposal, that a national government be set up which commands the
confidence of the people, was rejected by the British government, but is
receiving widespread support in India, even from such British official
newspapers as the Calcutta Statesman. All sections are agreed on the postponement
of major issues until after the war.”

All sections, including the Communist
Party. The demand for a “national government in India now” does not deceive the
Indian masses and it will not deceive the British working class. What is this
so-called “national government”? Is it to be a coalition government of the
princes, Congress, Moslem League, liberals, Hindu Mahasaba, communists and
others? We know that the slogan of a “national government” has always been used
to deceive the masses into believing their interests are being catered for,
when in actuality it is a cover for the continued rule of the oppressors. The
Communist Party are well aware that the only method whereby the Indian masses
will be led to the path of freedom is by the calling of a constituent
assembly on the basis of universal suffrage. But freedom for India—that is
freedom for the workers and peasants—would cut across the policy of the
Stalinist bureaucracy in appeasing Churchill.

The CP leaders attempt to justify
this false policy by saying that it is part of the policy of defending the
Soviet Union. But far from doing this, such a policy can only result in
disaster for the Soviet Union as well as for the British and Indian workers.

The
ILP

Instead of attempting to reach
the Indian workers and help them organise their own independent party, the ILP
graciously advised them to seek salvation in Nehru. The role of the bourgeois
national Congress has been clearly foreseen by the Fourth International long in
advance, especially the role of that section which, under the pressure of the
aspirations of the masses, adopted a “socialist” coloration. Nehru, who was on
the left wing of Congress and claiming to be a supporter of socialism, has
become the most zealous advocate of capitulation to the niggardly
concessions offered by Britain.

For years Brockway and the other
centrist leaders of the ILP pictured Nehru both to the British and Indian
workers, as the genuine leader of the struggle, not only for national but for
social freedom in India. We consistently pointed out that Nehru
was interested in neither. The logic of his position would lead him into the
open camp of imperialism. The New Leader published articles and pictures
of Nehru as their “socialist” comrade. Brockway
will no doubt shake his head sadly at this “unfortunate” betrayal, or will
plead “exceptional circumstances” to justify Nehru’s treachery, as Cripps is
even today being justified. At an election speech their candidate deplores the
fact that Cripps—“an honest man”—is being used by the capitalist class!

As always the centrists are led by the nose by
the radical bourgeoisie and middle class. The position of the ILP on India is
the inevitable fruit of the entire centrist position over the past period. Such
a party is incapable of leading a genuine struggle for Indian freedom, and
therefore cannot lead the struggle for workers’ power in Britain, for the two
are indissolubly bound together.

Tasks
of the British workers

By extending the war over the entire planet, the
imperialists have given a more profound significance to the permanent
revolution. By drawing the whole of the colonial world into the conflict, they
have placed their very existence in jeopardy. The last war and its
repercussions in the Russian revolution provoked a whole series of colonial
uprisings and revolutions: Turkey, Persia, India, Arabia, etc. By drawing these
areas directly into the struggle they have linked the colonial
struggle for national freedom and independence directly with the struggle of
the British workers for power.

It has been a truism of revolutionary politics
that the fate of the workers in Britain was irrevocably bound with that of the
colonial peoples—especially with the Indian revolution. The events of the war
have tied in one knot the destiny of the Indian and British workers and unless
the working class of this country understands the urgent need to break with
their capitalist class and their imperialist politics, and extend the fraternal
hand to the oppressed colonial workers and peasants, they will rapidly find
themselves reduced to the status of their colonial brothers.

If the British workers want to win as allies the
Indian and colonial masses in a genuine struggle against oppression they must
take the road, not of supporting the British imperialist oppressors, but of
struggling against them and taking power into their own hands.

Only when the Indian people see a genuine warof
liberation being waged by the British workers and not the present imperialist
war for world domination will they be won as enthusiastic allies.

An unprecedented opportunity confronts the
British workers today—and an opportunity which, if missed will not recur under
such favourable circumstances. A real alliance between the toilers of India and
Britain can be brought about today by a complete break with their common
exploiters, British imperialism, and the establishment of a workers’
government. Only such a government which can point to the expropriation of
British capitalism, which can point to a complete break with their brutal and
age-old exploiters, can win the friendship of the masses of India for the
common struggle against capitalist reaction everywhere. The programme on which
we appeal to the organised British labour movement, a programme of minimum
democratic demands for India, is one which every British worker will support.
As a first step towards unifying the toilers of India with the British workers,
it is essential that they fight for power in Britain and put the
following programme into operation:

1) Freedom for India.

2) A constituent assembly and full democratic
rights.

3) Arming of the free Indian people to fight for
their freedom.

4) Supplying of India with all the necessary arms
and equipment.

5) Release all political prisoners.

Note in original pamphlet:

(1) Dutt provides invaluable material
in describing the betrayal of the mass movement by the native bourgeoisie. But
blinded by the ignorant and reactionary school of Stalinism, he is incapable of
drawing the correct conclusion—which is the theory of the permanent revolution.
His conclusions demanding a national united front are completely contradicted
by the data he presents. Duty bound in the struggle against “Trotskyism” he
shuts his eyes to the theory of the permanent revolution which flows inexorably
out of the actual relation of forces.

Notes:

[A] “Burma” was the modern Myanmar.
“British Malaya” defined a set of states on the Malay Peninsula that were
colonised by the British. Before the formation of Malayan Union in 1946, the
colonies were not placed under a single unified administration. Malaya became
independent on August 31st 1957. On September 16th 1963,
the federation, along with Sabah, Sarawak and Singapore formed a larger federation
called Malaysia.

[C] All-Indian Hindu Assembly, a Hindu
nationalist organization, was originally founded in 1915 to counter the Muslim
League and the secular Indian National Congress.

[D] It refers to the Thesis of
Indian fourth internationalists of 1941, published in the same issue of Workers’
International News.

[E] See previous note on the British
currency system prior to decimalisation.

[F] In the old Indian currency system,
before decimalisation in 1957, 16 Anna made a rupee.

[G] The Cripps’ mission was an attempt in late March of
1942 by the British government to secure Indian cooperation and support for
their efforts in the Second World War. Sir Stafford Cripps, senior left wing
politician and minister in the war cabinet of Winston Churchill, headed the
mission.